An Explanation
by nine miles to go
Summary: If you passed them in a street, Chris and Bianca would look like your typical orphans. But they have a dark secret...and they may just have to risk everything to save their friends. --COMPLETE--
1. A Walk in the Park

Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah...don't own anything...yah, you get the point.  
  
Have fun reading!! PLZ REVIEW!!!  
  
Sometimes, when it's really warm outside, I dream about her. I think she left me on the doorstep to the orphanage sometime in the summer, I'm not sure. The only thing I know about myself for a fact is that my name is Chris Perry something and that I'm about seven, maybe eight, although I don't look that old yet.  
I always thought that she would come back for me, up until a couple of years ago, when Alex's mom died before she could pick her up. Alex is fourteen, and kind of like my big sister. Everyone's like family; Alex, Bianca, Sammy, and several others. I'm the youngest of them all, we think, since I've always guessed I was born in summer and I look so small. Bianca and I are pretty close in age, though.  
Anyways, since what Alex went through, I stopped believing that she'd come back.  
In my dreams, she's crying, holding another boy, about two or three. She has soft brown hair—maybe I got it from her. One of her eyebrows is off- balanced, but I think that's my favorite thing about her. She always leaves me on the doorstep, wrapped in a blanket even though it's hot out.  
Then she opens her mouth to speak, but I can't hear her. I only hear the dull roar of the cars on the street. Probably because I was too young to understand what she was saying. It frustrates me—whatever she had said, it had to have been important.  
"Chris, what time do you think it is?" Bianca asks, swinging on the swing next to mine.  
It is dark out, and the shadows have long passed. "I'd say about ten thirty." That's the best part about living at the orphanage; liberties. Once we've lived there for three years or so, and we're over the age of five, we can generally go any where. As long as we're back by twelve and don't do anything that will get Miss Marie in trouble.  
Bianca shivers. "Let's go back, it's too dark out."  
"Okay." I hop off my swing in mid-air, landing on the sand of the deserted playground with a thud. Bianca tries to follow, but I can see that she's going to fall, so I pull out my hand and use my power to send her back safely to the ground.  
She smiles. "Thanks, Chris."  
I grin back. We both have secrets that we only share with each other. We both have these unnatural abilities...like sometimes, I can move objects and people with my hands, and disappear to somewhere else with blue shining lights. Bianca can disappear, too, making kind of ripple like waves. And sometimes she can make things appear in her hands from out of nowhere.  
But, for some reason, we always found it best not to tell anybody.  
"Let's take the short cut," I suggest. "It'll get us home sooner, even if we have to go through the forest."  
"If you're sure..."  
"Sure I'm sure," I assure her. "Have I ever gotten us lost before?"  
"Guess not. Let's go."  
We walk carefully into the forest as quiet as Indians—a little trick we'd taught ourselves to hide from Sammy, who's twelve, when he'd chase us in tag. It wasn't long before I'd found us on the trail the lead to the back gate of the orphanage.  
"Do you hear the crickets?" Bianca asked, marveling. "I love the sound, but it's so loud tonight."  
I perk up my ears to listen. "You're right, it is unusually loud to—"  
We hear a piercing shriek in the distance before I can finish. 


	2. Familiar Strangers

Disclaimer: You know the drill. If I owned Charmed, my stories wouldn't be here—they'd be on TV!  
  
R&R!!!  
  
"Did you hear that?" Bianca gasps.  
"Yeah," I respond. "Let's go see what happened, somebody might need our help." I start to run towards the direction the scream came from, but Bianca pulls me back.  
"No, Chris, it could be dangerous."  
"C'mon, Bianca, if something REALLY bad happened, we could use our powers. All I know is that someone could be hurt, and we're the only ones around to do anything."  
All of a sudden the earth starts to shake violently beneath us. I bite back a scream, but I can hear Bianca and who ever we heard from before still shrieking behind me. We both buckle over onto the ground, shielding our eyes from the wind that just suddenly roared out of nowhere, blowing debris. It's summer—it shouldn't be this windy.  
It gradually stops and the screams cease.  
"Our powers couldn't stop THAT," says Bianca. "That was—horrifying—"  
"I know," I say. "Maybe that other person screaming knows what happened. Anyways, we'd better see if they're okay."  
"We don't even know them!" Bianca protests. I ignore her and start running again. "Oh, fine then, be that way!" She grudgingly follows me until we get to the edge of a small clearing.  
"Demon vanquished?" asks a voice. I can make out what looks like three women and a boy a little older than me in the darkness. I motion to Bianca to step back a bit so we're hidden in the shadows.  
"Yeah, Phoebes," pants another. "You okay, Wyatt?"  
The name shoots through me—where have I heard it before? It seems so familiar...but why?  
"Yeah, mom," says the boy. "That one was rough. Good job with the telekinesis, Aunt Paige."  
"Good job until it caused the enormous earthquake, you mean. If I had known THAT would happen..."  
Demons? Telekinesis? All of the words jumble around in my mind like pieces of puzzles that just don't fit right. I know I've heard people...in my dreams, they were frantically talking about something...demons! That was it! They were worried about demons.  
But there were no such things as demons or any other evil creatures. Miss Marie had told us so a long time ago after reading them fairy tales.  
And the telekinesis...is that like my gift? I can't hold in the curiosity any longer. Before Bianca can stop me, I step out.  
"What's going on here?" I demand.  
The second woman flicks her wrist at me once or twice, and I twist my face in confusion.  
"What are you doing?" I stare at her. There—there is the woman from my dreams that haunted me. Standing right there beside me...  
"Why won't you freeze?" she questions harshly.  
This is not like the woman from my dreams. She's being mean to me. I wish that she was more like she was when she talked to the other little boy. I pull away from her as she comes closer.  
"What do you mean 'why won't I freeze'? Are you trying to turn me into a block of ice or something? It's the middle of summer, and there aren't any refrigerators around here!"  
By now, Bianca has pulled up next to me, trying to draw me away. I plant my feet firmly on the ground, not letting her move me.  
"Are you two...witches?" asks the second women. Phoebes...a nickname for Phoebe?  
"No, I'm Chris Perry and this is Bianca," I explain, eyes narrowing at them.  
"Chris!" Bianca tries even harder to tug me back, but I stay put like a stone. Why would this lady call us witches?  
"Chris—Chris Perry?" the woman from my dream repeats, dumbfounded. "You're Chris Perry?"  
"Yeah," I say tentatively, backing up. "Why?"  
"Oh, um...nothing. Just like the name. Where are your guys' mommies? It's pretty late." She seems to be choking back tears, and I wish that she was mean again instead of sad. It was just how she cried when I saw her at night.  
"We don't have mommies," Bianca growled, meaning to offend me, not the woman. "And that's why we're going back home to the orphanage. RIGHT, Chris?"  
"Yeah," I mumble.  
She gazes at me for a long time with this wistful, sad look before I turn away.  
"Wait!" she calls. She takes out her purse and starts scribbling down numbers. "This is my phone number. If you ever need anything, just call and ask for Piper Halliwell, okay?"  
"O-okay..."  
Bianca then jerks me forward again in impatience and I receive the paper.  
"We're late, Chris. We're going home, NOW." 


	3. Taken Away

"What in the—" Bianca shakes her head, knowing she's not allowed to swear without being reprimanded. "What were you thinking? We don't even know them!"  
I can't answer her—what would I say? That the woman in the forest there was potentially my mother? I'd never met her, I wouldn't be able to recognize her if it wasn't for those crazy dreams; and I couldn't just tell Bianca that I was nuts.  
"They—were using gifts...?" I say tentatively as an excuse. She puts a hand on her hip and glares. "Look—I...knew them or something. I don't know, something inside of me just snapped, and then...Bianca, if I tell you something, will you swear not to laugh?"  
"Of course not," she replied tartly, "when have I ever mocked you?"  
I ignore the sarcasm in her voice. "I think I have more than just one gift. Sometimes in the summer time, I have dreams about a lady with brown hair and mismatched eyebrows leaving me on the doorstep of the orphanage. I always thought it was just a silly dream...but I saw her. Tonight, I saw her, she was talking to that little boy."  
Bianca conks me on the head.  
"Ow!" I whine, rubbing my forehead. "That was uncalled for."  
"And so was all that junk about meeting a complete and total STRANGER and thinking that she was from this memory-dream-power-thing! You could've been hurt, Chris—what if they found out about OUR gifts?"  
"So what if they did?" I counter. "It's not like they would kill us or something. They were 'vanquishing demons,' eliminating EVIL. That makes them good."  
Bianca sighs, taking my hand and leading me to the dorm rooms for the night. "You," she says, pointing a finger at me, "are SO naïve."  
Then she slams the girls' dorm door in my face, leaving me to a dark and empty hallway. I kick the door, hoping to scare her and all the girls in there. "Good night to you, too, Bianca!" I remark.  
As I turn around to head towards the boys' dorms, I scoff silently to myself in partial amusement and partial sadness. "I knew she wouldn't understand."  
I open the door, and it is pitch black inside. "Sammy," I whisper, "turn on the flashlight."  
Sammy doesn't turn on the flashlight, though, and Tom and Cam don't start mauling me for coming in so late. In fact, nobody's here. I didn't even see Miss Marie in the living room on our way home, come to think about it...  
"Sammy?" I ask the darkness. "Tom? Cam? Daniel?"  
I don't hear Daniel's snoring, either—and Tom, who'd normally be thrashing in his sleep and mumbling swear words, is absent. I shake in fear. Did something happen while we were gone?  
Suddenly an arm wraps around my stomach, grabbing me firmly. I try to cry out, but the intruder has already clapped a hand to my mouth and lifted me up, heading back out the door. I kick at them, writing back and forth, to no avail. I am trapped.  
Down the hall, I hear Bianca scream. "Chris, they're back—"  
She's hushed by her kidnapper and I begin to cry silently, still being shoved out to the doorstep and knowing that whatever has happened this time is definitely my fault. 


	4. Power Takes Over

"What do you think is happening?" Bianca whimpered. "Everybody was gone when I came in, and one of those ladies grabbed me. Now we're here—but how the heck did we get here in the first place?"  
"I don't know," I marvel, looking around at what looks like an attic. "We were on the doorstep, and your kidnapper came, and—all I can remember was seeing a lot of blue, like when I disappear, and then we just got into this place." I slowly get onto my feet, the floorboards creaking beneath me. This place is eerie. The people that took us away are gone, they just left us here.  
"What's that?" asks Bianca. I look towards where she is pointing and see an alter with a gigantic book on top of it.  
"I dunno," I respond, "but I wanna find out." I walk over to the altar, finding that it's about as tall as I am. I carefully pick up the book and set it on the ground so I can read what it says. "Book of Shadows," I read. I open the first page and—Wham!  
A woman carries a baby basket in one hand and a blonde toddler in the other. She's wearing a tank top and shorts, hair in a ponytail, warding off the hot sun. Tears fall down her cheeks as she sets the basket down onto the doorstep of an orphanage.  
"Good-bye, my baby Chris," she sobs. "I love you, but this is the only way. I'll some back for you sometime."  
With that, she tucks a note into the blanket that a little brown- haired baby is wrapped in. On the front of the envelope is a stamp—a triquetra. The family symbol.  
The woman shifts the toddler in her arms, rings the doorbell, then quickly turns away and runs down the street in misery.  
"Chris! Chris! Hello in there???"  
I am arisen from the scene, tears in my eyes. "I saw her," I choke, "and this time I heard what she said." 


	5. Evil Encounter

Thanks for all the reviews!! Me still no own Charmed sobs in denial plz excuse accidental spelling errors if any  
  
"What who said? Chris? Hello in there...?"  
"I told you, Bianca," I snap, composing myself, "the dream woman. I could never hear anything she said up until now. Then when I opened the first page of this book thing, I just dreamed it again, only I was wide awake. But this time I HEARD what she said..."  
"What was it?"  
"Nothing," I lie, "nothing, I, um, don't remember." I look down at the book. "What do you think it says on here? The writing's too small to read in the dark." I squint at the page, but I can only make out a scary drawing of a monster. "That's a bit disturbing."  
"Tell me about it," Bianca groans, "this whole catastrophe is confusing. Look, you can stay up here and dwell in the darkness and your silly delusions all you want, but I'm going to try and escape."  
"Door's locked, windows bound by magical spells," I say automatically. She gawks at me.  
"How would you know?"  
"I—I don't know," I stutter. "It almost seemed obvious to me, like I knew it before and I just remembered it now. Let's see if they really are bound." I walk up to the nearest window and tug at the latch, then become engulfed by blue electricity. "Ack!" I scream in surprise. It doesn't hurt, but nobody would want that.  
"Guess you were right," Bianca observes, having been attacked by the bolts as well. "There's no way out."  
"We could try disappearing—"  
"That," says a wicked, cruel voice from the corner, "would be called 'orbing,' dufus." From out of the shadows comes the little blonde boy that I had seen earlier that night with the women, and he doesn't seem too happy. "Apparently you two have much to learn about magic." He "orbed" next to me. "Mom's been looking for you for a long time. Chris, is it? Let me tell you one thing: stay out of my way and I'll try to stay out of yours."  
"Okay," I say to him, backing up. He orbs next to me again.  
"My name's Wyatt, and this, I presume, is Bianca. Your girlfriend?" he mocks me, grinning. I want to shoot a comeback at him, but something about him seems so evil and twisted—so threatening—that I restrain myself. "Having fun with the Book of Shadows? It runs in our family. It's part of my legacy...and yours. But that will all be explained to you in time, Chris..."  
  
I gulp. Something tells me never to mess with him.  
"I wish could consult to the Book whenever I pleased like you can, but..." He reaches over to the Book of Shadows and gets shocked. "I chose another path a while ago."  
"What's that mean?" Bianca demands. "That you're evil or something? Oooo, I'm SO scared."  
I wish I cold stop her, and now I know how she feels when I'm a little too outgoing for my own good.  
"Very good, Bianca," he says slyly, "you catch on pretty quickly."  
There's a knock at the door.  
"Yes, mom?"  
"Wyatt, I specifically told you not to go in there!" cries a voice. "Let me in this instant, young man! Honestly, you can be such a handful sometimes!"  
"Sorry, mom," he grumbles, unlocking the door and granting his mother entry.  
Piper comes in, arms crossed in impatience. "Wyatt, can you please leave me alone for just a moment? Go help your Aunt Phoebe in the kitchen, TRUST me, she'll need your help if we plan on eating anything but ashes to the house tonight." Once Wyatt leaves, she closes the door.  
Bianca and I are huddled up together, shaking. Piper kneels down to our height.  
"Don't be afraid," she says gently, "I'm not going to hurt you."  
"That's what the wolf said before he decided to eat little red riding hood!" Bianca bursts.  
"I guess I deserved that," says Piper wistfully. "But before you come to any conclusions, hear me out. There are a lot of unbelievable things that you guys might want to know."  
"Believe me," Bianca scoffs, "there's already enough in our lives that's unbelievable."  
Piper sighs and begins her story. 


	6. Why You Left Me

Thanks for all of the reviews! I'll try to make the chapters longer, but I kind of like the suspense more snicker. When I see a good cliffhanger, I end the chapter. Yes, I know that's frustrating but that's the way it's gotta be! lol  
  
Have fun reading!  
  
"First of all, Chris, you're not an orphan. Neither are you, Bianca. It's...very complicated." She waits a moment to let it all sink in, but the two of seem too shocked to say anything. "When you two were born, a demon was on the prowl for...certain kids from people like us. Demons, as I can tell you've already seen in the book, are bad people. Magical, like us, but evil. We're witches, good witches—and our job is to protect the innocent from harm with our powers."  
"But...how can we...?"  
Piper clears her throat, interrupting Bianca. "Six years ago, that demon was literally just coming into the homes of witches and other magical beings and taking the kids to produce evil later on. It was either hand them over or everybody dies, including the little one. We didn't want that to happen to you."  
"How did they know where to go?" I ask, wide-eyed. This all seemed like another fairy tale gone reality kind of thing. Were we inside of a fairy-tale? Did people get to read about us? I shiver at the thought.  
"Magical vibes off of the house," she explains. "Every house, even with the littlest bit of magic having been used, can be sensed through magic. We tried not to use magic, but we had to—so people wouldn't die. And that's when I came up with an idea to get everyone out of danger—I'd just have to do it quickly."  
"What was it?" Bianca demands.  
"Sending all of the children-in-question to one spot where they couldn't be sensed." Piper takes in a deep breath. "Chris, I'm your mother, and Bianca, your mother, Lynn, is downstairs waiting to meet you. But you can't go just yet—I have a few more things to explain."  
"Yeah," Bianca says crossly, "like why you never came back for us. Why everybody else at the orphanage is gone. What you were doing in OUR forest tonight."  
"We were definitely planning to come back for you. It was only temporary. We sent all of the magical children to a single place, disguised as an orphanage. Miss Marie is really a teacher from the magic school, a place where kids like you learn to harness your powers. While you guys were there, we planned on destroying the demon—but he was nowhere to be found. We figured—we, meaning all of the other mothers of magical beings—that it would be better to leave you guys there until he was stopped...which he never was."  
"What did he want with us?" I ask. "How come that Wyatt kid didn't go to the orphanage?"  
"He wanted to turn you all evil to work for him, as I said before. I didn't leave Wyatt there because he was old enough to defend himself, considering you two came from the two most powerful beings in the world."  
"Which are...?" I trail off.  
"Me, a witch, and Leo, a whitelighter."  
"Which is a..?"  
"We'll get to that later," she sighs. "Anyways, we bound all of your powers before leaving you there. Of course, some of you, like Alex and Sammy and a few others, were old enough to remember their pasts. But time passed and their memories faded. Alex's mom couldn't take it, claimed she'd go get her daughter no matter what. We couldn't let that happen. If she took Alex, the demon would connect them—if the mother's a witch, so is the child. Then he would guess we were hiding you all there. So we tried to stop her, and when that didn't work, we...had to kill her."  
"You WHAT?" Bianca exclaims.  
Piper keeps going. "Anyways, killing her was pointless. The demon already found out, we were too late. You know the demon we were fighting in the forest? That was the demon that tried to take you all. He succeeded tonight. While you two, thank god, were in the park, all of the other children were taken away, and Miss Marie was murdered."  
I gasp. Everybody I ever knew, everyone that my life had revolved around was gone. It wasn't fair. They didn't deserve to be taken, they were all good. I knew that nobody could turn them evil.  
"B-but you vanquished him, right?" I remember from the park.  
"Yes, once he came out of hiding it was easy to do so." I look up and see a single tear running down her cheek, and realize and I'm crying, too, along with Bianca.  
"But that doesn't mean that there aren't other demons that will replace him and do the job of making them evil instead."  
"My friends would NEVER turn evil!" I shout in their defense.  
She only shakes her head sadly. "Chris, they don't know about their powers. Once they're unbound, the demons could tell them that they were on the good side, manipulate the fact that they don't know a single thing about magic. It would work."  
"Wait—were our powers bound?" Bianca questions.  
Piper nods. "Of course, sweetie. Why?"  
"Because we can use them," I tell her, orbing to another side of the room and using telekinesis to levitate the Book of Shadows. "See?"  
"Damn it," she mutters. "You guys were too powerful. We should've known that your powers would grow, no matter what we did—"  
"Look," says Bianca after summoning the Book of Shadows into her arms from my levitation. "We want our friends back, and you're obviously going to do something, right?"  
"No, we can't. Besides, with you two, there really is no need to get them. With you two here, we've got the most powerful sources of magic that we need to stop them if the demons succeed in making them evil."  
"There is no WAY that we're going to help you or come anywhere NEAR you if you don't help our friends—we can leave right now, you know." I look over at Bianca, trying to catch her eye as a cue to shimmer away, but she's absorbed in the Book of Shadows. She rips out a page.  
"Hey!" Piper yells, "Don't you—"  
"C'mon, Chris, let's go." Bianca folds the page and sticks it in her pocket. "We'll find a way to help them OURSELVES."  
They orbed out of the manor, leaving a heart broken, confused Piper in their wake. 


	7. Unexpected Reunion

Lots of unexpected twists and turns in my story that I just spontaneously created, it's kind of confusing....  
  
R&R plz, even if I don't own Charmed or anything else very important for that matter...except my little sister, yes, I own her....lol, not. Anybody ever read a purplehorse100 story? That's my lil sis, Maddie. I got her hooked on fanfic! Yay!  
  
"The nerve of that woman—for all we know, she's evil! I mean, she said that magic runs through families—that little boy of hers' was evil, she could be, too! She's just going to let our friends turn—"  
"She can't be evil," I correct her, mostly to assure myself. "I've just realized something...I'm not sure, but it could be possible."  
"What?" asks Bianca. We're sitting on the same swings in the park, the ones that ended up sparing us from a horrible fate. Bianca isn't afraid of the dark anymore, I notice.  
"Well...Wyatt, that boy—he didn't go to the orphanage. He was vulnerable the entire time that Piper—er, my mom—and those other women went to look for a safe spot for all of us. It must have taken some time to bind all of the powers and ensure a non-magic environment for us all where nobody could find us. Where was Wyatt during all of that?"  
Bianca's eyes glitter, wide in realization. "You don't think...?"  
"Yes," I say, "I do think. He was taken by that demon while everyone was so distracted, and HE was turned evil. That's probably what happened, he could be a victim, too. Should we tell Piper?"  
"Nope," Bianca responds simply. "She doesn't deserve our help after letting our friends be taken away by demons. Let her son be evil. We've got more important issues to deal with, like how we're going to get our friends back." She takes out the now crumpled page of the Book of Shadows. "While Piper was lecturing us, I took a little examination of the book, and found some spells and information. Look—I think this may be the demon, it says it's supposed to look for vulnerable magic beings to turn." She grins. "And, what's even more useful, I found a spell to unbind the rest of our powers and another that will get us to the Underworld."  
"The Underworld?" I wrinkle my face in confusion. "What's that?"  
"Where the demon's supposed to be, or where he was before he was vanquished. I would guess that the other demons that are using our friends now would still be there. We don't have much time."  
I take in a deep breath and sigh. "Alright, let's get started, then."  
  
"Well, first we'll have to get all of our powers. Ready to chant your first spell as a witch?"  
"Sure, whatever."  
We recite a rhyme of words that we mostly don't understand, but nothing happens.  
"Oh great, it didn't work," I moan, throwing up my hands in distress. All of a sudden the birds and the wind freezes all around me. Bianca screams.  
"Chris, what the hell did you do?! Did you just freeze the ENTIRE park? Oh my god, undo it, before somebody sees!"  
"I don't know how," I panic, flailing my arms and trying to make it go back to normal. Eventually everything perks back up again and I gasp. "Holy...something. That must have been what Piper was trying to do to me when she wanted to freeze me. Do you suppose that it doesn't work on other witches?"  
"Yeah, that's probably why she was so surprised when we were still moving," Bianca realized. "Anyways, here's the spell that gets us down to the Underworld. With the powers that we already had, we should be able to take them on, let alone the new ones we've just possessed. You ready?"  
"Yeah. Just...promise me you'll be careful."  
"You, too."  
We cross our pinkies in a silent promise, hands linked as we recite yet another spell. Wind swishes back and forth all around us and I feel this odd sensation of being dragged downwards into a bottomless pit. We are spinning wildly, and I wonder if it'll ever stop...  
CLUNK!  
We land on the hard, dirty bottom of what looks like the inside of a very deep, tall mountain. I'm half-marveling, half-shaking at the place, knowing that this is probably the adventure of a life time and that there wasn't a great chance of coming out alive. As that slowly registered in my mind, I stood and helped Bianca up from the ground.  
"You okay?" I ask.  
"Yeah," she says, brushing off the dust from her jumper. "You?"  
"Yeah."  
"Not for long, you won't be," says a evil voice. We turn and see...Wyatt? "Yes, it's me, Wyatt. My own mother killed my master...it's now my duty to fulfill his mission, his destiny. Nobody can stop me...not even you, little brother," he cackles, eyeing me. He tugs on a rope, and I look down to where it leads—Alex's neck. He's squeezing it, strangling her.  
My heart is racing. All the kids are nearby, held by invisible ropes. There is nothing I can do...but then I see the knife by Wyatt's foot and a sneaky plan begins to form spontaneously in my head. There was a way to save them, Bianca and I just needed to work together to do it...  
Out of the corner of my eye I see something race past me, hitting Bianca. She shrieks and hits the floor, unconscious but definitely alive.  
With a cold, hard glare, I advance on Wyatt. He has gone too far now.  
  
"You're going down," I spit at him.  
Wyatt laughs at me and I almost feel like laughing with him in spite of myself. He's right—nobody can stop him, not where they're all alone. 


	8. Forgotten Victory

Okay, guys, this chapter is the end of my story....but there will be more Chris centered stories to come!  
  
Disclaimer: Yes...I do own Charmed...in my sleep, at least....sighs  
  
"What are you planning to do to me? Orb around the room and ANNOY me to death?" he says, choking back the gales of mocking laughter in his throat. He stops and immediately his face turns stony and cold. "Master would not be pleased that I was making fun. You must be eliminated, you stand in the way, survivor. There is no way out of here."  
"Chris, run," Alex wheezes, the oldest of us all and the only one without a gag around her mouth. The others are all still behind her, struggling but still not escaping or making any progress.  
Wyatt kicks her. "Shut up, you," he barks. "I may look small but soon enough you'll be calling ME master...and I will create a new world order for evil to avenge my master's death."  
"Wyatt, I don't want to hurt you. You have one chance to surrender, or I promise you I'll attack, and it'll hurt," I bluff, putting up a brave, courageous exterior. "I know you're a victim to the demon's evil ploy, but you have to let it go. Return to the good side. Be with your mother, she's all yours—I'm not planning on staying."  
"That's always nice to know," he grins wickedly, "but that's not going to change their fates. As soon as I throw this potion, all of them will be blind to the division of good and evil, their morals will be shattered. They will only know one thing: to obey Wyatt. ME."  
He lifts the potion, ready to toss it at them all. I lunge for it—and I end up flying! I scream in shock. I'm up in the air! Wyatt, surprised by my scream, stops throwing the potion and is distracted just long enough for me to grab it from his hands.  
"But—you're powers were bound!" he insists as I slowly make my way to the ground.  
"It never worked," I explain, "I had telekinesis and orbing, always. Bianca and I unbound the rest of out powers before we came down here. I'm still getting used to them...what in the hell WAS that?"  
"Levitation," he muttered. "Damn you. I don't care, though, it's not much of a difference. I just have to destroy you and make a new potion once you're dead." A great, big fireball forms in his hand. "Betcha don't got this power."  
I hold up my hand and concentrate. "Please..." I beg. A tingling sensation erupts in my hand and I open my clenched eyes to see a fireball—not as big as Wyatt's, but it was a ball of fire—right in my hands!  
"You fool!" Wyatt exclaims. "That little thing will never hurt me!"  
I clench my teeth angrily. "We'll see about that. It won't stop me from trying."  
We both unleash the fireballs, and a great boom echoes through the Underworld. In the middle of us, the two fireballs have met and are pushing through each other, trying to get to their victim. I close my eyes, panting. The world is blurry as I keep willing with all of my heart for the ball to get to him and not me. The two balls come closer to me, and out of instinct, I orb away—leaving the balls to hit the wall.  
"Oh my god," Wyatt curses as the places begins to shake violently. "Look what you did!" He grabbed all of the ropes to the kids, which he suddenly unmasked. "This is all your fault—we'll have been revealed! Now I have to return them all! Damn you!" He takes a fistful of Bianca's hair, orbing her and the kids out.  
The ground slowly crumbles beneath my feet. I try to orb again, but that instant a boulder falls on top of me...before I absorb the shock or pain, I find my world is filled with darkness. A hand grabs mine...and I forget everything else.  
  
"Chris? Chris, are you okay?"  
I open my eyes. Piper and the other women are hovering over me, this time with a man I don't recognize. We're in the attic...I think....what happened? It all seems so fuzzy...  
"Chris, it's me, Piper. Don't you remember me?"  
I sit up and rub my head. "I think so...where am I? What happened?"  
"You were in the Underworld," the man explains from next to me. "You were going to save everybody down there, and it worked. Everyone's safe now, thanks to you."  
"But I don't remember anything," I protest.  
"What CAN you remember?" One of the women asks. Phoebe—that was her name, I guess.  
"Bianca and I were in the attic, and there was this kind-of-mean boy that came up to us. Then Piper came in and told us about all that stuff. Bianca grabbed the spells and we restored our old powers...that's all I know. I can't remember anything else."  
"Well, whatever you did, it caused for all the kids to be returned to the orphanage and the Underworld to go up in smokes. You're a real hero, kid—or should I say, son."  
"You're my dad?"  
"Yeah..."  
"What—where's Bianca? Was she hurt? She's okay, right?"  
Piper smiles gently, putting a calming hand on my shoulder. "She's fine, honey. You've been asleep for a few hours. There was a huge earthquake inside the Underworld when Leo orbed you out, and you got hit by a boulder. Leo healed you, but I guess it caused some short term memory loss. Bianca's downstairs, meeting her mother."  
"Everybody's okay," I repeat, more of an assurance to myself than a question.  
"Yes, they're all fine. Now, have you met Wyatt?"  
"Not formally," I say, "just in the attic earlier today."  
"Oh, I'll go find him for you. He'll love to meet his little brother."  
As she leaves, something's nagging at the back of my mind. Something I was supposed to remember about Wyatt. Something bad. What was it? I know it had something to do with all of the kidnappings, but I just couldn't put my finger on it quite yet.  
Wyatt comes grumpily up the stairs. The first thing I see is the cold, stony stare, and all I can think is 'Whoa, déjà vu.' 


End file.
